CORNWALL, Ontario – A former OHL team owner and Cornwall city alderman will spend several more years in prison for his role in a massive Ponzi scheme.
According to a report a California judge sentenced Willliam Wise to 262 months in prison which means the 64-year-old could be well into his 80s if he is forced to serve the entire term.
Wise has been in custody for nearly three years. He co-operated with law enforcement and pleaded guilty to 18 counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud and tax evasion.
“I’m prepared to take my lumps,” he told the Toronto Star nearly three years ago. “If I didn’t feel badly, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. I’ve helped cause a lot of pain. Regardless of whether it was my intention or not, the result has been horrendous, horrific.”
Wise ran a $129.5-million Ponzi scheme by selling fraudulent certificates of deposit to 1,200 people through various banking entities between 2004 and 2009.
Prosecutors said Wise and co-defendant Jacqueline Hoegel, who ran their investment office, sold $129.5 million in fraudulent certificates of deposit and promised a 16 per cent rate of return. They instead used investors’ funds to pay off earlier investors and to make luxury purchases, including Wise’s property on a Caribbean island, prosecutors said.
Wise was an alderman in Cornwall in the 1980s, but many will remember him as the person who broke the hearts of local hockey fans when he moved the city’s beloved Cornwall Royals to Newmarket in the early 1990s.
